[2020 APRIL FOOLS CHAPTER]
Hey Everyone.
So over the last few days and weeks, I have been thinking a lot about NTT and where I am going with this fic. While I am still happy with the overall story, I have fallen out of love with the ships involved.
Now, rather than dropping this and re-writing a new version of the fic like so many other writers have done when they fall out of love with their characters, I've decided to do something different.
This chapter is a brave and important step toward reorientating this fic back in the direction I want it to go, and over the next few days and weeks, I will be going through the rest of the story and subtly editing it so everything looks like it had always been that way to match with the new endgame ships.
Anyway hope you enjoy the next instalment of NTT!
If Armin was honest with himself, he should have known something was up when Mikasa slipped that piece of paper into his hand with a short, hastily scribbled message telling him to meet her in one of the unused sleeping quarters after lunch. He had expected some kind of planning session as to what they would do next, and maybe deep down, he had been hoping for something else. But both possibilities were derailed when he bumped into both Ymir and Historia, the latter holding a similar slip of paper.
"You got one as well?" He asked, showing his paper. Historia nodded, telling him her one had asked Ymir to tag along as well.
Together the three of them arrived at the room, with only some mild protests from Ymir. As they entered the room, they came across the unusual sight of Mikasa sitting on the bed nervously fiddling her thumbs.
She looked up at the three confused invitees and spoke four words which could incite fear and dread in the hearts of anyone who heard those fateful words.
"We need to talk."
Standing up, Mikasa began to pace across the room, radiating nervous energy like Hanji did crazy waves.
"Mikasa, what's wrong?" Armin piped up, neck growing stiff watching Mikasa pace back and forth.
"Everything is wrong." She answered, coming to a stop. "I can't keep lying to you all."
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she looked at Armin with what can only be described with apologetic eyes. "Armin, I'm so sorry, but I've been using you."
"U-using me?" He stammered.
"Yes. I've been selfish and cowardly. I couldn't admit my true feelings to the person I love, so I was using you because you reminded me of them."
"O-oh." Armin tried to keep the pain out of his voice.
"The person I love… the one I have loved since I first laid eyes on them all those years ago, is you…" Mikasa turned her head and looked at the one she loved. "Historia."
Ymir looked both pissed off, confused and strangely bemused at the whole situation. She hadn't expected this and was definitely pissed off that Mikasa was trying the moves on Historia so brazenly, but she knew Historia was happy with her and didn't return Mikasa's feeli-
"FUCK YES!" Historia cried out, pumping her fist and jumping to her feet.
"What." Ymir deadpanned, not quite believing her ears.
"Sorry Ymir, you're a great gal, but this is Mikasa we are talking about. Like a badass warrior Queen." Before any more could be said, Historia leapt into Mikasa outstretched arms and the two kissed with such passion that it couldn't possibly be described in words.
So it won't be.
After breaking the indescribably erotic kiss, the two time-travelling girls looked into each other's eyes, ignoring their two open-mouthed witnesses. "Take me to your room," Historia commanded, channelling her inner queen, "Now."
"Your wish is my command." Mikasa answered with a broad smile and swiftly left the two stunned 'exes' behind, carrying the giggling Historia bridal style.
When the door slammed behind them, Armin and Ymir were finally shaken out of their daze like state. Both owlishly blinked at the closed door as if expecting the two to run back in at any moment and scream 'Fooled you!'.
But as the seconds ticked by, and the giggling became fainter and fainter, they were left with the startling conclusion that whatever the hell they just witnessed was 100% real.
"Damn…" Ymir finally muttered, shaking her head. She wondered if she was just in shock or something because after seeing her girlfriend leap into the arms of another after a single out of the blue confession, she felt remarkably calm. Heartbroken, but calm.
It was a strange mix.
Turning her head toward Armin, seeing his strangely serene expression which seemed to be matching her own, she found herself giving him a once over.
'Blond, blue eyes, kinda cute, smart, single.' she listed, realising she had a thing for short, blue-eyed blondes.
"Hey Arlert, what do you say to being my torrid straight rebound fling?" She asked him completely seriously.
Hearing the question, Armin returned the favour of giving Ymir a once over.
'Tough, stubborn, confident, strong, good-looking… Titan shifter.' he added, realising with his past feelings for Eren, Annie and Mikasa that he seemed to have a thing for Titan shifters.
"Sure." He answered with a shrug.
"Great." Ymir nodded, patting her hand against the bed she was sat on. "I hope you're not a dinner first kinda guy?"
Life was too short for any scout to be dinner first kind of person, and even a time-travelling scout was no exception to that. With a shake of his head, the two of them started to rapidly undress, seeing no real reason to delay.
As he reached for his belt, Armin hesitated. He had always dreaded when this day might come, never quite sure how to address the issue. "Hey Ymir," he looked at the freckled girl who was in the middle of taking off her shirt, "what's your 'how big is too big' policy?"
Yanking off the shirt, Ymir just cocked her head to the side with a look of confusion. "My what policy?"
Armin allowed his trousers to drop.
All across the headquarters, hundreds of scouts were left reeling as the deafening cry of "HOLY SHIT!" echoed down the hallways.
Elsewhere
In an underground cell in an underground city, two scouts sat on the ground, mostly recovered from their daily verbal abuse and beating session a few hours ago.
While every day they endured horrible conditions and treatment from their captives, the two scouts could firmly say this had been a bonding experience like none other. They had entered this hell hole as comrades and perhaps having planted the first budding seeds of friendship. Now, with nothing to do in between beatings and sleeping except talk, they had become fast friends and confidants, freely telling each other all number of secrets and personal stories.
Today, after their daily beating, their discussion had turned to relationships. The romantic kind.
"I've had a few boyfriends. Nothing too serious." Petra shrugged, leaning back and resting her tangled, dirty hair against the cold stone walls. "Those outside the corp hear 'scout' and believe it's just a glorified one-night stand, thinking they will never see us again once we head out beyond the walls. And trying to get anyone inside the corp when you're in the special ops squad is nigh impossible. Apparently, it's intimidating to date someone who has killed a dozen Titans." she scoffed, remembering her last failed attempt at an inter-corp relationship.
"Be grateful for your training days Eren. It'll never be as easy to get some action as it was back then." Bequeathing her sage advice to her fortunately unbound friend across the cell, Petra smiled in the low light of the cell as the fond memories of those days came flooding back to her.
"I… I didn't really do any of that stuff during training." Eren hesitantly responded, a light pinkish hue on his slightly gaunt cheeks.
Petra shot forward, ribs protesting at her rapid movement. "Seriously? Nothing?"
Eren shook his head which only fuelled Petra's look of total disbelief.
"No way." she decided, "I refuse to believe that nothing happened during training. You're a handsome boy, Eren. You're confident, passionate and kind to boot. You should have been beating them off with a stick."
With every word, Eren's blush seemed to deepen. He wasn't used to hearing such praise directed at him like that from anyone, let alone an attractive older woman like Petra.
Seeing his deep blush, and relieved that Eren was coming out of his shell a bit after what that fat bastard had done to him, Petra grinned.
It was teasing time.
"So, you're telling me you never got 'locked in' one the storage sheds overnight with someone and had to 'share warmth' to survive? That's basically a military tradition, Eren. There's a reason shed six had such thick walls, ya know."
Eren looked up at her, his jaw-dropping as if finally understanding why he had found random pieces of clothing in that shed whenever he was placed on inventory duty. He briefly wondered if they had ever used- 'Nope, nope, nope, not going there. NOT going there!'
"Alright, that's a no to the shed then. But what about a quick," curling her hand into a fist, Petra made a simple motion with it, leaving the implication face-burningly clear. And oh, how Eren's face burned.
"Or a," without mercy, she pushed out of her cheeks with her tongue. "behind one of the buildings?" she finished; the grin now spread wide across her face.
"Walls no!" Eren blurted out, completely mortified by the crude bluntness he believed only Ymir was capable of, and the slight stirring downstairs those mental images caused. "I've never even kissed a girl." The confession slipped out before he could think. Realising what he had just said, Eren's hand came flying up to cover his mouth, nearly knocking himself out with his manacles.
'SHIT! Why did I say that?!' While Eren had never cared too much about his lack of experience, it wasn't something he liked to talk about. More than once he had been laughed at in the boy's dorm for his naivety regarding such things, especially by horseface who claimed to have kissed countless girls.
He knew it was probably bullshit, but anything Jean had over him, even if it was fabricated, was a sore point for the young shifter.
Unbeknownst to Eren, his revelation had left Petra totally bewildered. She simply struggled to comprehend how someone like Eren could pass through bootcamp (even if he didn't do the full three years) without doing a single thing with anyone.
'What the hell? Have the instructors finally found a way to stop teenagers from being teenagers?'
Back in her day, the instructors must have spent most of their time interrupting and fruitlessly trying to keep hormonal teenagers apart. Was the old commander-turned-instructor that scary, that he had successfully intimated all his trainees into celibacy?
As soldiers, they were under a tremendous amount of stress, with the spectre of death hanging over them every single day, and Eren had never gotten to enjoy his cadet days under old Shadis's reign of tyranny.
'It hardly seems fair after all the shit he's been through. Finding out he can turn into a Titan, saving Trost, nearly be executed by the government, and now this.' Petra glared at the cell door then at the dried bloodstains on the floor. 'It's bullshit.'
Her glare softened into a mere frown. She had known Eren little over a month, yet in that time he had become very important to her; first as a charge, then as a comrade, and now as a friend. And it just didn't sit right with her that with his… condition and the constant surveillance he was subject to, Eren might never get the chance to enjoy the finer things in life.
Of course, Petra wasn't only thinking about Eren here, as she privately lamented the lack of finer things she had experienced lately. She had attempted to catch Captain Levi's attention more than once, but her aspirations had only been answered with seeming indifference.
Oh, who was she kidding? Trying to flirt with Levi was akin to getting blood from a stone. 'Might as well flirt with the stone. I would probably have more luck.' Petra grumbled. 'I get that he's my senior officer and all that, but would it kill him to let his eyes wander every once in a while?'
'I've seen Eren take a quick look once or twice, and he was blushing like mad when he gave me his shirt.' She thought, a tiny smile breaking through the frown. It was good to know she still had it, even in her current state.
She glanced over at the still red-faced Eren and found her carriage of thought had wildly spiralled from simple teasing to curiosity, then to something else entirely.
'We could both die here.' She cautiously reasoned, her resolve about being rescued from this place wavering, 'And while he might be innocent and a bit naive, he's not completely unaware of these things. Maybe we could…'
'Walls! What am I even saying?! Has this hellhole messed me up so badly that I'm honestly thinking about this?!' She started to refute before getting side-tracked again.
'But it's not like it would mean anything, right? Just two friends looking out for each other, nothing wrong with that…'
Petra took a long mental pause. They had been through hell together, and she was probably closer to Eren than most other people she knew by now. They ate together, were beaten and mocked together, and slept together for warmth. They were the others' only rock in this nightmare.
'Ah, screw it, what's the worst that could happen? He's probably as lonely as I am.' With her mind made up, and caution thrown to the wind, Petra took a breath, titled forward and started to move across the cell towards Eren.
"Hey, Eren." She called his name, causing the shifter to look up from his embarrassed brooding. "You told me you've read a lot of banned books with your friend, right?"
Eren, who was strangely captivated by the approaching Petra, cautiously nodded finding this mouth to be even drier than usual. He didn't know why she was moving on her hands and knees, or why her hips were swaying like that, but it was doing weird things to his head.
"Tell me," Petra smiled coyly, coming to a stop in front of him with their noses only inches away. What few higher brain functions Eren still had running, pointed out how breathtakingly pretty Petra was, even with dirty hair, dark shadows around her eyes, and that scarring on her cheek. "Did you ever come across the phrase 'ara ara' in any of those books?"
Eren shook his head, not knowing or caring what that phrase meant, his mind solely focused on how close Petra was and how her enticing pink lips moved as she spoke.
"Well, let me show you then." Petra purred into his ear, pressing forward to close the tiny gap which still lay between them and slowly sliding a hand down his jacket covered chest until it came to a rest right on top of his-
Very much Elsewhere.
"What the fuck?" Ymir (the eldritch God-like being trapped in an endless dimension of pure sand, not the freckled shifter who was currently wondering where the hell Arlert had hidden that) blurted out.
She had been in the middle of the Paths equivalent of channel surfing, flicking through her people's memories as a way to pass the 'time' in this un-ending limbo.
At first, she hadn't noticed a few strange changes here and there, but soon those changes became so pronounced and ridiculous that it utterly ruined her immersion in the real world.
A girl finding and gorging herself silly on several crates' worth of freshly baked potatoes that had just been lying about she could ignore.
A boy with stupid red twirling hair walking behind his horse and getting kicked so hard he would never have kids she found vaguely amusing, if slightly random.
An overgrown man-child suddenly deciding to drop his ridiculous anti-children crusade in favour of becoming a world-renown clown was enough to make her raise an eyebrow.
But these last few memories had been the final straw. They had come from nowhere, had no connection to the people's previous feelings and emotions, and were both overly sexual and/or perverse for no apparent reason.
Clearly, something or someone was screwing around with her children's memories.
Rising to her feet Ymir, mother of all Eldians and the First Titan, strode toward the mighty tree of life which dominated her featureless world. Coming to a stop before Yggdrasil, and being bathed in its azure glow, Ymir frowned feeling something was distinctly wrong with it.
"I wish I had called that Pathsmechanic several days/centuries ago." She sighed, resting a hand against the pillar of light. The poor thing had been suffering from trans-dimensional indigestion following that memory throwback it did a few seconds/years back, and as it worked through its backlog of stored memories, it must have allowed some to become contaminated or corrupted.
"Oh well." the girl said with a shrug, she knew how to fix this. Or at least push back the issue until the Pathsmechanic arrived.
It may have been the coordinate to which every Eldian who had ever live was innately connected to and had the history of their entire race stored within it, but ultimately the tree of life could be fixed like any other piece of temperamental equipment.
Ymir drew back her leg and kicked the tree as hard as possible.
"Ow." the tree said in treeglish.
Ymir waited for a while then frowned when nothing happened. Eventually, she realised that it wasn't the tree that was messing around with the memories but was, in fact, something far, far worse. Turning to look directly at the screen, Ymir broke the fourth wall and called out the writer.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing, you bloody weirdo?"
Wait, what?
"Don't you 'what' me! I know exactly what you are doing, forcing these beloved characters to act entirely out of character just to act out your creepy repressed fantasies."
What the hell?! How are you doing this?
"I'm a literal Goddess you mouthbreather, I can do whatever I want!"
But you're not real! You're just a character, a fictional character!
"Don't give me that crap. I'm literally talking to you; how can you say we're not real?! Haven't you put these characters through enough?! Pain, suffering, loss, and now you're just fucking around with them like some malicious, spiteful deity who revels at the notion of making their creations suffer. You make me sick."
At this point, the writer suffered a complete psychological breakdown from the existential crisis caused by his thorough dressing down by a self-aware 'fictional character'.
Scoffing in disgust at the sobbing writer, Ymir now looked directly at you, the reader. "And don't think I've forgotten about you either! You, who constantly support and help this madman, fuelling this nonsense by giving him all the love and ideas he needs to keep writing. Gah! Look at the degeneracy your support has given birth to!" she threw her hands up in frustration.
"Fine. I'll fix this." With a sigh and a clap of her hands, all of the above ceased to be, and everything reverted back to normal. (Except that boy with the dumb hair who got kicked by the horse, because Ymir did actually find that to be rather amusing.)
"Now that's better, isn't it? Anyway, happy April fools." Ymir said, brushing her hands against her sandy, nondescript dress.
And with the fourth wall irreversibly shattered and the pieces of rubble set aflame, a large curtain fell across the screen, bringing this chapter, and its totally non-canon insanity, to a close.
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April Fools
Did I get any of you?
(The real chapter is coming along nicely but hopefully, this shit post tides you over until then!)
